Early ticket sales predict ongoing growth of 2019 Adelaide Fringe

Interstate and international visitors are helping to drive a surge in early ticket sales for the Adelaide Fringe.

Ticket sales are up 30% compared with the same time last year for the South Australian event, the second largest fringe festival in the world.

With one month remaining until the festival begins, Adelaide Fringe Director and Chief Executive, Heather Croall said the spike in ticket sales to tourists and locals was expected to level out to about 8 to 10% as opening night neared.

She said the number of visitors to South Australia for the month-long Fringe had increased by 50% in recent years to more than 20,000 last year.

Croall (pictured below) advised “our online presence is a lot stronger earlier this year and a lot of artists and venues are really getting on top of how to make some great noise on social media alongside the Adelaide Fringe channels and it’s getting a lot of traction.

“I think our profile in general is growing around the world so we’re confident those visitor numbers will continue to grow.

“The increase in sales are across the board. (For the) last Fringe about 13% of our ticket sales were to tourists - about 90,000 tickets - and at the moment tourist sales are around 13% as well.”

Box office revenue at the 2018 Adelaide Fringe reached A$16.6 million from 705,761 tickets sales - up 7% - to further cement Adelaide Fringe’s position as the highest ticket selling arts festival in Australia and the second-largest Fringe in the world.

In 2017, Adelaide Fringe set targets of reaching 1 million ticket sales per year by 2022 and tripling the number of interstate and international visitors attending to from 13,500 in 2016 to 40,000.

Croall said attracting more tourists to Adelaide during the Fringe was a crucial part of their 1 million ticket goal.

She said unlike locals who generally worked during the week, tourists were available to attend matinees and mid-week performances, adding “with Adelaide being the size it is it’s a pretty amazing statistic that we do sell 700,000 tickets but if we can get more like 40,000 tourists coming in then it will be much easier for us to hit those ticket sales targets.

“We need to keep the growth up constantly over the next three or four Fringes and early indications look strong.

“We’re here for the Fringe to be an exciting cultural experience that Adelaide can be proud of but we do understand the critical role that audience growth plays for the sustainability of the artists and that’s why we need those tourists.”

South Australia is home to 11 major annual festivals such as WOMADelaide, the Adelaide Festival, OZ Asia and the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

According to the Live Performance Australia Survey, more than 50% of all the multi-category festival tickets sold in Australia in 2016 were sold for South Australian festivals despite the state being home to just 1.7 million people - less than 8% of Australia’s population.

The month-long Adelaide Fringe features 7000 artists across 1326 in 517 venues including a toilet, bus, vineyard and IKEA.

Croall said the 2019 Adelaide Fringe would be an “entertainment extravaganza” with significant growth in the genres of circus and physical theatre (up 44.4%), interactive (up 44%) and theatre (up 21.8%).

She concluded “each year we see more and more artists getting behind our fabulous festival and putting on an increasingly diverse range of shows so that Fringe-goers have an exciting assortment of events to choose from, including wonderfully unique experiences like a music performance on a hot air balloon and a play set in a caravan park.”

The 2019 Adelaide Fringe kicks off on Friday 15th February with a street party and the stunning Tindo Utpurndee Sunset Ceremony by the banks of the River Torrens.